State of the AL 3 years later

[Darkrai]

3 years ago i made this thread https://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?548030-State-of-AL-(long-post-rant) and since then ive barely played the game.

What i want to know from people is. Have things changed since then? For the better or for the worse? Would love to hear opinions about it and have a civil discussion.

[Emkai]

Game is easier as a returning f2p now if u have slots n stuff alrdy proc stackings removed but we can stack set bonuses also the inflation has been crazy

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[Bestnamever]

Recently came back myself. I usually take 6 months to a year break from this game. Been doing that for years.

As far as the state of the game- It's a great game to come in smash some mobs and farm gold.
Nothing to different as far as that.

Events- They come alot more now. (I remember after an event you'd have so much energy saved for the next you'd have to go on an alt to play cause you had no more inventory space) Good times. Now events come every week pretty much. Almost to much honestly.

Information- Is insane. Let's be honest it's always been insane. Everyone farms for the new shiny.

Gear- Alot has been said about the worry of their time and money being sunk into gears and then they become obsolete. They don't become obsolete, they just won't be as powerful, no big deal. Nothing new to reportas far as that goes.

3 years gone- I've seen a sort of merge of PL in AL as far as event maps. Labrynth is one we just had. Halloween is next and the map will be our favorite Boogie and a PL like map.

Returning players- I've Been seeing a ton of returning players recently. getting older so my memory is shot , but still remember some names. I do recognize yours from past forum posts and such. Still looking for some old-school (Mythic Dragon) Guildies I remember from old. That was the best guild I've ever been in, miss those days.

Power- It's becoming kind of insane the way things are going as far as the raw power folks have in this game.
It's becoming more of a solo type of game. You can roll some sick stats awakening your gears, then your a boss and well you can just run in and kill everything you don't need a PT.

Sets- Theirs some freakin amazing sets now. (Way to many I think) Hard to keep up with.

Almost anything that used to be exclusive is tradeable- Badges and titles are sellable/tradeable. It's kind of defeating the purpose of doing something really amazing in game and getting day a reward and then selling it on auction for an insane amount of gold. Then you see a lvl 2 running around with that sick title or badge. They didn't earn it, it's just they had alot of gold and wanted it. Idk kind of defeats the purpose to me.

In closing I want to say This game is a gem. I've played hundreds of games and yeah their cool but I always end up coming back to AL. There's good and there's bad with this game but that's evolution. I said to myself this time I'm not going into OMG!!! I have to have that new shiny!!! Nope I play now for pure enjoyment and I'm loving it.

Hope this helps. Great to see a name from old. Wishing you a great stay if you come back.

[dreoelak]

All the complaints you had in the original post apply to the current state of the game.
Farming is much easier, but extremely boring. Outside of the events, you will farm only gold. Popular farming maps take less than a minute to finish, so unless you think killing the same boss 60 times in one hour is fun, you'll be disappointed. Furthermore, if you have bad gear, you'll end up spending most of your time watching better geared players complete maps solo. Did you notice that "solo" remark? Great, cause the game is pretty much a solo affair now. Personally, I find the game to be absolutely unplayable in full pt with the current (nonexistent) difficulty.
Your afterword from the original post sums it up perfectly. Pretty sure you won't be able to call this game mmo, cause sts doubled down on all the things you complained about in the original post: all gear comes from lockeds, gl hasn't gone anywhere, game is heavily centered around events. Add to that a breakdown of the game's balance, and the picture is complete. Or maybe I'm just lamenting about the good old days of 31-46 caps (I enjoyed ren'gol aswell), it's up to you to decide.

[Switchback]

Scanned through the post. You quit at about the right time because almost every issue you have had has only intensified. Funny enough it started just about the time of that post you shared.

Unless you can have fun farming gold or swiping a card, this game is being made for about 200-300 people. A Social App maybe. It's an elitist/LB game, with everything possible getting monetized while nerfing nearly all aspects of f2p.

[jeabahty]

I went through your original post, and boy was it a nostalgic journey haha. I started playing in 2015 but definitely lived through a lot of the good stuff. I loved the themes and styles in all expansions up until Tindrin. Garetta is where it all started to go downhill for me, and as far as I'm concerned, I don't think it's ever taken a turn for the better since. Ways to get decent/viable gear started to get more and more difficult; markets started to get more out of hand; eventually farming crates wasn't a viable option either; dungeons started to turn more into incessant grind fests with increasingly challenging mobs - and with virtually no decent way to make money or buy good gear, it all started to dwindle my interest in the game. Like most others, I too am a on/off player (probably more off than on) and stuff like pretty much what you pointed out just seemed to exacerbate the problems.

Of course, I say all of this as a F2P player, so my opinion carries significantly less weight than others.

Even now they try to nerf stuff, which I can understand is their way to curb plenty of things going around, but it just ends up working towards the detriment of others than the desired audience (or maybe that is the desired effect, who knows?).

To your point: I personally wouldn't say things have changed much since then. Obviously there's those who won't agree with me for n number of reasons. However, I'd still very strongly suggest that you take a look and make that decision yourself based on your experiences as well as expectations - maybe you might end up liking it now, or maybe you won't - only you can tell.

[Darkrai]

Toke a bit of look around and as i thought most of my complaints have just become worse over the years. Truly saddened to see how my first ever "mmo" turned out.

I do admit that the new content their brought out with the curses does look interesting but stuff like that is truly only for the minmax. Goodluck getting there as a new player.

I genuinely dont know what im hoping. Maybe an part of me is hoping sts would turn a new leaf and change the game for the better. But all i can see is them milking a cow that should have put down years ago.